Felienne Hermans calls herself an ‘involuntary ethnographer of computer science’. She studies the culture behind programming, and challenges the dominant idea that learning to program has to be painful. Alix and Felienne chat about the history of programming and how it went from multidisciplinary and inclusive, to masochistic and exclusive. They also dig into all the ways it excludes women and people who do not speak English.

Further reading & resources:

• Scratch — a high level programming language aimed at kids
• Hedy — the programming language that Felienne designed
• Join in and help out with Hedy!
• GenderMag by Margaret Burnett — how to ensure more gender inclusiveness in your software
• Elm — an easy and kind browser-based programming language
• A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design by Felienne Hermans & Ari Schlesinger
• A Framework for the Localization of Programming Languages by Felienne Hermans & Alaaeddin Swidan

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Felienne is the creator of the Hedy programming language, a gradual and multi-lingual programming language designed for teaching. She is the author of “The Programmer’s Brain“, a book that helps programmers understand how their brain works and how to use it more effectively. In 2021, Felienne was awarded the Dutch Prize for ICT research. She also has a weekly column on BNR, a Dutch radio station.